Memories Within the Skin
by LadyGadfly
Summary: Maleficent has a lot of scars, mental and physical. Written for Maleval Week Day 6: Playing w/ Children (& Scars).


It's Aurora's youngest that asks her.

Aurora has brought their grandchildren to play, all of them taking to the beauty and strangeness of the moors as easily as their mother had done. Philip is playing with their eldest son James in the burn, the wallerbogs attempting to teach them both how to sling mud correctly.

The middle child, another boy named William, is trying to catch Diaval as he swoops and careens in raven form, nearly getting close enough to let the little one catch him then swooping away. Aurora is sitting a little ways off, laughing and egging them both on.

Maleficent looks at these children that she adores more than life herself, and smiles. There was a time she thought there would be nothing in her life but darkness and pain. And now she is surrounded by family. Happy. Safe.

She sighs contentedly and looks down at the child in her arms. She's a little girl named Rose, with her father's eyes and her beastie's golden hair. She's a sweet little thing, quick to smile and laugh. Maleficent is braiding flowers into her hair.

When she's finished, the wee one declares that she's going to braid her grandmother's hair now. Maleficent indulges her, although she knows the girl will only tangle her hair horribly.

And she does. Maleficent cringes as Rose tugs on her hair, knotting flowers and bits of grass into her long brunette tresses. She tolerates it. She'd tolerate anything for her grandchildren.

"Grandma, why do you have scars on your back?" Maleficent tenses. The dress she's wearing today reveals the skin around her wings. Skin that was scraped raw and scarred by an iron chain so many years ago. "Are they like grandpa Diaval's scars?"

Maleficent clears her throat, trying to think how to explain. "No, little one. Your Grandpa Diaval's scars are because he's a shape-shifter. That's the mark the magic leaves on him when he changes into human form." Diaval has actually just shifted into his human form now, and is presently spinning William around as the boy laughs wildly.

"But do they hurt?" Rose is guileless, with the single-minded determination of a child.

"No, poppet they don't hurt."

"Did it hurt when it happened?"

Maleficent's jaw clenches. Rose can't possibly know how terribly an uncomfortable a subject this is for her Grandmother. Even many years on it still chills Maleficent to think of the pain and horror of waking up to find her wings gone. The betrayal. The violation...

She breathes slowly through her nose and smiles wanly at her granddaughter. "Yes little one, it did. It hurt very much."

"What happened?"She's not quite sure how to explain to a child that her biological grandfather had sawed his wings off for his own sordid ends, so she keeps it vague.

"A bad man took my wings." The child's eyes go wide.

"Why?"

"It's a very long complicated story, little one. I promise I'll tell you when you're older."

"what happened to the bad man?"

"He's gone. Forever."

Rose seems to sense the tension in her grandmother and moves round to give her a hug.

"Do they still hurt sometimes?"

Maleficent thinks of the night terrors of chains and blades and Stefan's laughter, less frequent these days but still there. Of the days the joints in her wings still ache in memory of the iron.

"Yes, my dear, sometimes they do. But I have lots of people around me who make me feel better and make me forget all about it. Like your mother and father and your brothers. Like Grandpa Diaval. And you!" Maleficent boops Rose on the nose and the girl bursts into giggles.

Diaval and William are heading over now. Diaval, ever attuned to her moods tilts his head, a questioning look on her face. She shakes her head, opening her arms for her grandson as he comes careening towards her. Aurora is coming over as well, pleading with her to use magic to clean off her husband and son, who are chasing after her, before they muddy her dress.

She has an awful lot of scars, Maleficent thinks. Ones that will never fully heal. But, she muses as Diaval presses a kiss to her cheek, it hardly matters.

They're healed enough.

* * *

_Author's note: Not much Maleval in this but hey. My brain just kinda went "nope" on this prompt. _


End file.
